The release of the movie Philomena has helped to put the spotlight on how Irish society dealt with the “problem” of “illegitimate” children.

The true story of a woman forced to give up her son for adoption in the 1950s and their quest to find each other exposes how the authorities today are treating these now middle-aged children and their ageing mothers.

Very few girls left Mother And Baby Homes with a baby. High infant mortality rates of almost 50% and adoption were the norm.

It was not until the introduction of the Unmarried Mother’s Allowance in 1973 that the situation began to change.

This shameful part of Ireland’s history has been highlighted previously in the stories of many of the women who spent time in Magdalene Laundries.

What has not been highlighted is what happened next.

Philomena reveals the systematic and deliberate efforts of the authorities to keep mother and child from tracing their identities.

In 1997 Frances Fitzgerald told the Dail: “Denying access to information about one’s origins is denial of a human right. The Minister must now introduce measures.”

She was right but now as minister herself since 2011 she has done nothing to implement the measures she referred to, instead hiding behind so-called complexities and legal problems.

With sickening hypocrisy, the State says the birth mother has a right to privacy and was guaranteed confidentiality when she gave up the child for adoption and presumes all natural mothers want to avoid contact with their child.

But most mothers are relieved and glad when contact is made.

Many spend years looking.

In fact what has emerged is a major scandal of illegal adoptions with blank forms being signed, signatures forged, cases of children registered as the natural child of the adopted parents and the so-called right to privacy being a convenient denial of information.

Earlier this year I was contacted by a woman who had her daughter in one of the Sacred Heart Mother And Baby homes.

Her daughter was taken from her and adopted without her permission.

She later married, had four other children who were all told about their sister. She spent 30 years trying to find her daughter.

Letters and visits to the nuns saw excuse after excuse, they didn’t know where she was, they didn’t get the letter, the daughter’s adopted family said they did not think it would be good for her to meet, and so on.

She got cancer, as did one of her other children and she wanted her daughter to know her medical history. Even that didn’t move them.

She wrote to me and we put her in touch with Adoption Rights Now.

In less than 10 days this group of volunteers had found her daughter, spoke on the phone, exchanged pictures and began the process of meeting.

The issue of tracing must be addressed.

Adopted people and natural parents have been deliberately denied access to the files held by institutions such as St Patrick’s Guild, who facilitated illegal adoptions.

The experience of tracing a parent or child through the Adoption Authority is often a nightmare.

The official contact register so far matching less than 1% tells a story.

The trickle of information offered by the AAI is a humiliating experience.

One man told our office how he was offered the first initial in his natural mother’s name and told he would have to wait a year or more for the next piece of the puzzle.

Adopted people are staking their own claim for their identities and will no longer be silenced.

More than 25,000 records were handed over to the State from the Sacred Heart Homes in Beesborough, Castlepollard, and Sean Ross alone.

The Minister has acknowledged the significant demand to access them and the HSE adoption service has not responded as it should.

There is urgency to this matter and the Government tactic of delay until they die is cynical and immoral.

Shameless double standards

Fergal Quinn (Photo: Colin Keegan, Collins, Dublin.)

Senator Fergal Quinn’s plan to bring forward a Bill to the Seanad would not just outlaw strike action in essential services.

If enacted it would jail the strikers and is a reflection of the outrageous anti-worker sentiment that he and his ilk are supportive of.

Ironic that the agenda against ESB workers has been spearheaded by Independent Newspapers in the 100th Anniversary of the Lockout.

Of course, it was their previous owner William Martin Murphy who went to war on the tram workers and then everyone else in 1913.

Mr Quinn and his Louis Copeland-clad class come from that pedigree.

Ironic that it was this union basher who recently campaigned for the retention of the elitist Seanad in the name of defending democracy.

Now he wants to use that institution of privilege to block the democratic right of workers to take action to defend their living conditions.

Spot the hypocrite.

Give this group seal of approval

Grey seals (Photo: Mirrorpix)

The Irish Seal Sanctuary yesterday released a grey seal pup back to the wild.

Crowds of onlookers gathered to see Cara off at Travel hawk beach, just outside Wicklow town.

She was rescued in October by sisters Johanna and Sharon Weadick who guarded the new born seal all day on a busy beach until the Irish Seal Sanctuary arrived.

Cara thrived throughout her rehab but has limited experience of sea and of other seals.

But now blubbered up with a fortnight’s reserves and learning to cope with her own natural environment again she is fit enough to go back sea and integrate with the local colony at Brides Head.

It is a spot where she will be safely observed with supports in place to complete her rehab and integration with her wild relatives.

This is another success story for the Irish Seal Sanctuary, a volunteer group whose work attracts huge support from citizens, a support that is unfortunately not matched by Government or councils.

They are currently homeless and need adequate State support to continue their vital work around our coasts.